Wednesday, 22 September 2010

Things to sum up about yesterday's talk:1. I hate speaking in public though I need to push myself to do it.2. Am I in a constant identity crisis that affects my own work? Why some locals tend to look outside for influences when there's so much visual richness in our own surroundings? How to go back to the roots without being false? How to mix the nostalgia from the place that you want be but you can't and the place that you have to be but you don't want?3. A little sum up of what they said:- Personal satisfaction- Being honest with my own work- Strong sense of self and personal goals- Have fun- Be careful with what the final purpose is4. Between the pursuit of surpassing mediocrity and achieving perfection the only thing I really care about is producing. Never keep things inside, try to put things out there. That for me, is already an achievement.

1. Since I'm back in Bogotá I haven't spoke as much English as I would like to, therefore I think my speaking and writing abilities have got worse. That's one of the reasons why this blog is written in english (also because I love the language)2. Why I'm I doing this blog? Well apart for the simple fact of just for fun, it has become sort of my reflective journal on my creative practice, with hints of a personal diary. No harm in that.3. So I have also thought about some work I've made in the last month and most of it its about memory, nostalgia and loss. Pretty depressing I know, but it happens to be my source of material to produce work that is related to my own reality, therefore its more honest and I feel more comfortable moving within that space.4. But talking with my friend Sarah about a book she's been reading, she told me how someone was trying to find ways to overcome nostalgia and loss with a positive approach through a work of art (do not confuse with self-help exercises) so I wondered if it comes a time when you have to move on and let your art work as a therapy that helps go forward from not only your recurrent creative subjects but your own problems? Is it time to use memory as a mechanism to produce work that reflects and evolves on itself so as to become less repetitive, more educational and meaningful? How can I make that possible?

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Because I'm in Bogotá now, I wanted to make some paintings about spaces I miss from London. I started by selecting some pictures I took over the past two years. Then I made them black and white and printed them so I could work mixing techniques on paper.By making them black and white I would guess the shades of colour and textures they use to have, painting with acrylic and pastel pencils the tones I could remember. I'm quite pleased with the melancholic and almost eerie atmosphere they turned out to have, I think, true to its very essence of memories.